Out Of Character
by Little-Firestar84
Summary: Collection of short one-shots, often non-related, featuring the SGA and Atlantis crew. One: in which Daniel Jackson acts out of character for once, and he enjoys it; two, in which Vala has some issues after Queen Death has been defeated (as seen in Stargate Atlantis: Legacy vol. 6)...
1. Chapter 1

A little something that came to mind while I was watching Stargate Atlantis reruns. The diea was to do a Stargate Atlantis story, with Jackson and Vala as Guest-stars, but my plan has been hijaked, so, instead, it came a short vala and Daniel story, with just a little mention of both Sheppard and McKay...

* * *

She looked at the man sleeping deeply at her side, his features slightly illuminated by the small lamp still turned on in a remote corner of the room- _her _room. She smiled, curled on her side, her weight on her right elbow, and with her free hand she reached out for him, suddenly unsure.

Her hand stilled mid-air, as her mind was suddenly filled with… with dreadful thoughts, the one she was always engulfed with, but that she hid from the rest of the word, behind her carefully built mask made of a mixture of dangerous adventurousness, joy, curiosity, excitement and (apparent) libertinism.

(She wasn't going to tell him that after joining the SGC, she hadn't had anything with anyone. For a man as smart as he was, he could be quite dense, especially in certain departments. As in, say, women.)

It wasn't disbelief for what concerned her; she knew he wasn't her usual type, but then again, her usual type, in the past, had had all to do with having one of two nights of fun and/or surviving impeding death. He was exactly her kind of man- the one she wanted in the long run, for the rest of her life. What was stopping Vala from enjoying fully the experience of a naked Daniel Jackson in her bed- both things done on his own accord, fully aware that she, too, was naked, and at his side in the very same bed- was the fact that, well, he was Daniel, and she was… herself. And in the past, Daniel hadn't really showed to be interested in her in that department (or in any other department, for what could matter).

He pushed her away. Literally. As in, _I'm working, go bother someone else. _

He dismissed her when she asked him silly things about his own planet, like that time she hadn't gotten the Saint Bernard and Chihuahua metaphor (nor the child awake early on Christmas morning. Or late on Christmas Eve. She honestly couldn't remember it right now) and she had ended up asking McKay for what he had meant by those words (he hadn't dismissed her, not at all; but there was a good chance he was far more interested in the fact that she was an alien, and had been even more so after she had told him she had spent some time as an host).

Eh. Maybe Daniel Jackson was her type, but she was pretty sure she wasn't his; she had never met his late wife, but she had heard a lot about her, and now she saw the women he flirted with – and _dated _(another point against this being real: the time she believed they were on a date, he asked her how could she actually believe it, threated her pretty badly and spent his time underlining the fact that they weren't on a date and he wasn't interested in dating her because the notion of them dating was, quite frankly, crazy.) and they were all like him. Smart. With many degrees. Young and beautiful and not with a scary, troubled past, and (mostly) from Earth.

So… yep. Dream. Definitely. There was no other possibility, she realized, sighing frustrated as she let herself fell on the bed on her back with an ungracious _thund _that shook the whole structure of the irony canopy bed in the guest quarters in Atlantis, where the SG-1 was currently working on a joint operation with the expedition. Maybe it was because of the town –it had something… mystical about it. Maybe there was some telepath around messing with her head. Or maybe it was because of some Ancient device. Or an alien pollen, like in that television show she had seen a while back, or all those Doctor Who fan fiction stories she had found on the internet (she hadn't fully understood yet why people felt compelled to write such stories, but few of them were nice, and few authors were quite good, almost as much as the people working on TV or for the cinema).

"Stop moving and stop staring at me, Vala. I'm trying to sleep here and frankly, this whole thing it's quite freaky." She sat up in bed as soon as she heard the male, sleepy, irritated voice at her side- Daniel's voice and tone, definitely – and grunting (and annoyed, by the look of things) he did the same, looking at her with an annoyed expression, pointing at her with a finger. "Which part of I'm trying to sleep you are not getting?"

Her first thought was _Since when Daniel Jackson sleeps when in Atlantis?, _and at that, Vala lifted an eyebrow, like she didn't believe him. Her second thought was about the realization that yes, Daniel Jackson was indeed naked in her bed _with her, _and that she was naked too. Squealing like a scared little girl who had just met some wild creature, she took the linens of the bed, and used them to cover her chest (out of character probably, but well, she was a development she hadn't really seen coming), hiding her nudity from him. Unfortunately, the movement did nothing but uncover completely Daniel, who was… well, naked. As in, like the day he was born.

"Kind of late for modesty. I saw everything there was to see last night." He told her with _his don't mess with me/you know that I'm right/ I know better than you/what do you know about it anyway_ look (and yet, he too took a corner of the bed sheet to cover his lower part, Vala realized amused.

They didn't talk for a minute or two, with Vala looking at everything but Daniel, mostly, because she didn't want to be tempted. And because, even if she was starting to remember what had happened between them the night before, well… it was still hard to fathom. It had been completely out of character for _her _Daniel. Yes, he tended to get mad easily (especially with her), but… him? Getting jealous? Of her? Because of Colonel Sheppard? Had someone told her even just the day before, she would have called them crazy, and yet, it was exactly what had happened.

"Oh, Ok, I get it, I really do. You are being your usual self, right? You… played me. you finally managed me to lose _completely _control and now you are going to walk out of this room, satisfied with yourself and… and what? Making a good laugh at my expenses?" he asked her, quite annoyed and frankly, a little bit exasperated. But Vala didn't answer, nor did anything. With the exception of looking in the void, like she was kind of lost. "Have you heard a word of what I just said?"

But when she turned to face him, in usual Vala fashion… her answer wasn't what he was waiting for. "You do realize that the only reason Colonel Sheppard offered to show me around was because you've kept remembering him that I used to be a thief and he wanted to make sure nothing disappeared from the Atlantis perimeters, right?" she coil deb dense at times, and maybe she didn't know a lot about Earth and its people, but she wasn't an idiot.

"Uh…" Daniel simply said, realizing that there was a chance she was right. Yes, Sheppard seemed to be a flirt, but he seemed to have eyes only for his tem-mate, Teyla (who had eyes only for her husband and son), and even if McKay spent a lot of time around her, it was because he was far more interested in Vala for scientific purposes, given the fact that she was an alien and had been a Goa'uld host. So, yeah, maybe rushing at night in her room, crazy with jealousy and a sense of ownership towards the woman, just to savagely kiss her and walk her backward towards the bed may not have been his smartest move.

And it could also be the reason she wasn't exactly sure of what was going on, given that he had acted completely out of character. "Are you all right?" he asked her, still confused. He sighed. He just wanted to clear the air between them and get back to sleep. Or to do some other interesting activities that also involved a bed.

"Daniel, dear, I think that should be my line, given the situation." She answered, her lips a tight line. Yes, Daniel realized, she was confused and worried. For him. Because of him. He grunted and let himself fell on the bed on his back, his right hand covering his eyes; he knew he was no lady's man, but he thought that he wasn't a complete idiot when it came to romance (even if the fact that he had asked Vala out without realizing he was actually asking her out seemed to suggest the contrary), and yet, here he was, naked in bed with a beautiful naked woman, one he had been enamored with for a while but never done anything about his attraction because he feared she wasn't serious- and he just didn't know how to not do serious when it came to his relationships with women.

God, he was a genius. And yet… a real idiot.

Suddenly, he felt himself purr like a big cat, and he opened his eyes as he felt Vala playing with his hair, massaging his scalp. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking at her, relaxed and concentrated on the task. He knew he had already asked her once, and that she had dismissed it because she felt she should have been the one worried about his mental health, but he just needed to know. And the fact that she was so relaxed and concentrated… he couldn't say yet if it was a good sign or not, but as sure as hell it felt encouraging.

"I'm just…. Overwhelmed, I guess." She said, stopping her motion and falling on the bed too, just at his side, turned toward him.

"So… slow?" Daniel asked, a bit disappointed. Frankly, they had already slept together. He wouldn't' have minded if, in the light of the day, they had continued to do so. Just adding having an adult and proper relationship to the sex mix.

"Well, I wouldn't mind doing the things you people from Earth do… like having dinner, dancing, shopping…" She said each words tapping right on his heart, getting closer and closer with each word, until she was pressed against him, only the bed sheet between them, doing nothing to conceal the heat radiating from their bodies.

"Or maybe not." He said, throwing the sheet on the floor, and covering her body with his own, and devouring a squealing Vala with kisses and love-bites. After al, acting out of character had worked out so far: he didn't have any reason to believe it was going to stop now.


	2. Chapter 2

While the rest of the team was getting ready to leave Atlantis and get back to HQ after the battle with the Wraith, Vala sat on Daniel's desk, her feet dancing in the air.

"Do you think I lost my touch, Darling?" she asked casually, looking at a very nice painting on the wall, as Daniel wasn't showing any interest in her presence- acting as she wasn't there at all (which could have been true, as he was so engrossed in All things Ancient). He simply lifted his nose from the old book, and looked at her like she was crazy, waiting for her to move on with the conversation, so that he, too, could know what she was talking about. "McKay. I found him… well, Colonel Sheppard where McKay had left him, I was "working", let's say, under the illusion that McKay was on Queen Death's side, right?"

Daniel didn't give any sign of understanding what she was saying, so he simply waved his hand around, hoping that she would get the hint. That she actually did. "Well… then either I'm not as good as I thought, or your philosophy doesn't work.

"Ok?" Daniel asked. He was a genius. But he really didn't understand her. he doubted that even Carter or- God forbid him for thinking so- McKay could understand Vala on their best days. And they were smarter than him- even that pompous jerk of McKay.

"Well… then I'm either not good at this job, or too good." she simply said. And before Daniel could ask her to clarify her statement, she was gone- running after shiny things, like a cub after a little wild animal.


End file.
